First, the bit about that weight loss is buried in one or both of the videos—but you have to find it if you want, which is going to piss some people off (but you get what you pay for). There’s also a mention of misled vegan, enlightened libertarian John Mackey (see, contradictions do exist) and Whole Foods Markets, but in a different context—which is a bit dot-connecting interesting.

Second, I hate how the first part of the first video has to take a minute out to assure all the conservative children in the audience that libertarians are not out to threaten their imaginary friend (quite telling, that, if you ask me—it’s nice to hold such compelling ideas in general that people will cheat on their master).

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

FWIW, I don’t know much about Genn Beck but that a lot of people either love him or hate him. I used to catch his radio show way back when, spinning the dial in the car, and I actually got the impression in my mind’s eye that he was a long haired, former hippy guy, somewhat akin to Ted Nugent, and who went somewhat libertarian/conservative. Ha!

The most extremist power any political leader can assert is the power to target his own citizens for execution without any charges or due process, far from any battlefield. The Obama administration has not only asserted exactly that power in theory, but has exercised it in practice. In September 2011, it killed US citizen Anwar Awlaki in a drone strike in Yemen, along with US citizen Samir Khan, and then, in circumstances that are still unexplained, two weeks later killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son Abdulrahman with a separate drone strike in Yemen.

Since then, senior Obama officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and John Brennan, Obama’s top terrorism adviser and his current nominee to lead the CIA, have explicitly argued that the president is and should be vested with this power. Meanwhile, a Washington Post article from October reported that the administration is formally institutionalizing this president’s power to decide who dies under the Orwellian title “disposition matrix”.

When the New York Times back in April, 2010 first confirmed the existence of Obama’s hit list, it made clear just what an extremist power this is, noting: “It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing.” The NYT quoted a Bush intelligence official as saying “he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president”. When the existence of Obama’s hit list was first reported several months earlier by the Washington Post’s Dana Priest, she wrote that the “list includes three Americans”.

What has made these actions all the more radical is the absolute secrecy with which Obama has draped all of this. Not only is the entire process carried out solely within the Executive branch – with no checks or oversight of any kind – but there is zero transparency and zero accountability. The president’s underlings compile their proposed lists of who should be executed, and the president – at a charming weekly event dubbed by White House aides as “Terror Tuesday” – then chooses from “baseball cards” and decrees in total secrecy who should die. The power of accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner are all consolidated in this one man, and those powers are exercised in the dark.

In fact, The Most Transparent Administration Ever™ has been so fixated on secrecy that they have refused even to disclose the legal memoranda prepared by Obama lawyers setting forth their legal rationale for why the president has this power. During the Bush years, when Bush refused to disclose the memoranda from his Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) that legally authorized torture, rendition, warrantless eavesdropping and the like, leading Democratic lawyers such as Dawn Johnsen (Obama’s first choice to lead the OLC) vehemently denounced this practice as a grave threat, warning that “the Bush Administration’s excessive reliance on ‘secret law’ threatens the effective functioning of American democracy” and “the withholding from Congress and the public of legal interpretations by the [OLC] upsets the system of checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government.”

But when it comes to Obama’s assassination power, this is exactly what his administration has done. It has repeatedly refused to disclose the principal legal memoranda prepared by Obama OLC lawyers that justified his kill list. It is, right now, vigorously resisting lawsuits from the New York Times and the ACLU to obtain that OLC memorandum. In sum, Obama not only claims he has the power to order US citizens killed with no transparency, but that even the documents explaining the legal rationale for this power are to be concealed. He’s maintaining secret law on the most extremist power he can assert.

But I’m sure you already now all about this because for how it’s been all over the news for months, just like when Bush tried to pull similar shit—y’know, the media being so unbiased & shit.

Popular Paleo Blogger writes about the link:

To me, the interesting part isn’t exactly who was killed: it’s the blanket assertion by the executive branch that they have the power to kill anyone they want.

To me, this isn’t a source of moral outrage…it’s the inevitable endpoint of government in general. He who has the guns, makes the rules. No matter how you dress it up, any system in which the mass of people is constrained in what weapons they can own (“gun control”, “gun-free zones”) by another class, which reserves the right to use all the weapons they prohibit for others, inevitably ends with “We can do whatever we want, because you can’t stop us.”

That’s why I found the article interesting, anyway…the admission that even a constitutional republic born with checks, balances, and the noblest of intentions will reach the point of “We can do whatever we want, because you can’t stop us.”

Finally, back to Napolitano’s nice weight loss, shame on all the pettifogging purists who made a big deal over certain inaccuracies in: Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health, or who’ve slammed the heroic Dr. William Davis. While he’s out saving lives and helping people to improve their health in the tens of thousands in a very PGP (Pretty Good Paleo) way, useless pettifoggers did squat. Oh, that the world could be as pure lilly white as the driven snow, and nobody ever got any good help but from Snow White.

Reader Interactions

Comments

Lew Rockwell also lost a ton of weight in short order, likely following similar principles.

Wheat (and beans) are my own triggers now. Everything else is just fuel for the day. I do think that higher reward-designed foods can cause me to overeat, so I tend to avoid them, but I *can* eat them if I monitor my satiation.

Re: purists

I’m having a Glenfarclas 25-yr reserve tonight, and I’m tossing an ice cube in there.

Big deal. I didn’t hear you complaining when they were assassinating citizens of other countries without a trial (e.g. Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Saudi, Colombia, etc). It’s only now he’s targeting US citizens it’s wrong?

“My only problem is that it’s kinda arbitrary to me. I really don’t draw that much of a distinction between nationality, but between innocence and threat. Not to say those people might not have been threats—I don’t know—but that a lot of innocent people of various nationalities are being killed.”

That was what I wrote in the email to the person who sent me the link. The quote in the post is his response.

“Big deal” yourself. You haven’t heard 1% of what I’ve said or complained about, ever, but a fraction of 1%. I love how you idiots presume to know who I am from blog posts, and that if I don’t blog about every injustice, that must mean I’m OK with it.

“But I’m sure you already now all about this because for how it’s been all over the news for months, just like when Bush tried to pull similar shit—y’know, the media being so unbiased & shit.”

This is a huge story itself, and gives the whole game away. There is a massive, clandestine executive power grab that would make Dick Cheney proud and the press …. gives fuck all. Why? Because its OUR GUY.

The true press today likely has “blogspot” or “wordpress” in their URL or is an independant site like FTA.

This is just what makes me laugh my ass off and be so dismissive of so many. Nothing has really changed in terms of killing, torturing, and holding people without charges. But it’s Obama, so it’s cool.

I’m just a Canadian who reads. Maybe I’m out to lunch here but as far as I’m concerned, Obama is more New York Times ‘republican’ (in war mongering, protecting banking criminals and corportations, foisting costs on people… the Obamacare which I’ve read more about recently and I get why people are so outraged because it benefits insurance companies and not people…etc.) than a stereotypical badass New York Times labeled Republican. These days, that is. (Democrats and Republicans seem to have changed positions over the past 50 years or so.) The b.s. about closing down Guantanamo and everything else is just that: b.s.

That’s astute, Gabriella. I’ve said it for years. The republicans try to out democrat the democrats and vice versa. With the exception of Obama, going back to Johnson, the republicans have always been the biggest spenders and increasers of the federal deficit.

Regarding Glenn Beck, as a long time Libertarian, he makes me want to take a bath. Some of us will never forget his disdain for Ron Paul. Who did he support? Rick Santorum….give me a break.
Not to be rude, but Beck is to Libertarianism, what Jimmy Moore is to Paleo. (I don’t dislike JM but he will hop on the bandwagon he needs to hop on)
Beck is Big Hat no Cattle

Beck has flipped on libertarianism so many times you’d think he works at McDonalds. Just after I moved to the States in ’08 he was all about libertarianism, Rand, Hayek, etc. It sold his show during the financial collapse. But then all of a sudden libertarianism is evil, stupid, ignorant. Libertarians are a threat to the country. They’re all pot-smoking neo-Leftists.

Does it seem strange this way we describe weight change? Loss. Lost. Losing. “I”ve lost 20 pounds.” For most people describing it, they’re putting the outcome they desire in terms that is usually saved for negative things.

And I don’t see where else it occurs. We only describe decrease in money as loss if it’s truly a loss. We don’t say how many miles we get per loss of a gallon in our car.

I did not come up with it, but I really do encourage people embarking on decreasing their fat stores to phrase it differently. My favorite something like “I started eating potatoes because of a FTA post I read, and I’ve given 10 pounds back to the universe.”

Either it’s within your skin or outside your skin. It’s not being lost, it’s just how much is you and how much isn’t. If you have more within your skin than you want, give some back to the universe. The universe will probably make a cute furry rabbit with it, and that’s a good thing, right?

I like to thank the 40 pounds I gave back to the universe got turned into a honey badger, but it’s just wishful thinking.

The O made a point of using it in one of his silly attempts to intimidate a guest. Another grade-A dickhead. You should watch his interview with Leonard Peikoff from ’02 or thereabouts. The O now advocates everything P was arguing back then.

Obama is a psychopath. I can’t think of any other explanation. And his followers – sycophants, dogs begging for scraps, and the people who love him, I don’t understand them.

I posted this and some commentary on the issue on my FB page when the story broke. No one commented, except for one person who gave the predictable “well, Bush did it too.” No, not to American citizens. Then a reply: “well, they were terrorists or involved in terrorists plots, a preemptive strike was warranted to save American lives”

So damned predictable, because as Remnant said “ITS OUR GUY.”

Any safe nations to which to expatriate myself?

To Gabriela, you can see what so many Obamanauts do not. He’s a low-impulse control drug addict and pathological liar who can smarm his way into getting anything he wants by promising treats to the little doggies who lap his ass all day, and he is going to take America down to the level of the third world hell-holes he loves to bomb the shit out of, so he can start bombing the new American third world shit hole too.

Bets on whether or not we gin up a good war so he can say we need him to remain president and get a third or fourth term from the idiot children non-property owning no-dog-in-the-hunt people who are given the right to vote?

I have learned that criticism of the progenitor of modern Libertarianism could result in having my ass banned from this comment section so I will refrain from uttering any such blasphemies against this apparent reverential deity.

As for Judge Andrew Napolitano I was surprised to discover he holds some insightful viewpoints I can wholeheartedly endorse.

For example:

– He’s a pre-Vatican II Catholic– emphasis on “pre”
– Describes himself as pro-life
– He’s skeptical of the official 911 story saying, “It’s hard for me to believe that World Trade Center building 7 came down by itself… twenty years from now, people will look at 911 the way we look at the assassination of JFK today. It couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us.”

On the other hand some of his viewpoints are curious and some are just dead wrong IMO

– He has called consumer advocate Ralph Nader a hero of his.
– He supports repealing the prohibition on same sex marriage.
– Strongly opposed Arizona’s anti illegal immigration laws.
– Supported the decision to lift the ban on women in front line military combat.

The guy is a mixed bag of careful analysis, contradictions and incorrect beliefs colored by his zealous ideology.

I agree with Dr. Davis that wheat is pretty bad. But I think the main reason is not its latest incarnation. I think the whole way we eat wheat has changed. So unless you eat it in a traditional way ala WAPF, you are going to get bitten by it.

I have written an article on wheat detailing the several ways in which our consumption has changed. One point is specific to Indians :-).

I’ve probably done a post or two about WF in the past and its penchant for courting vegans. But WF is a business and I’ve not seem any material change in how they offer good quality for a Whole Paycheck, so it’s not of much interest to me.

I don’t make it a practice of shitting on people doing good, even if they’re imperfect.

By misled, I mean that Mackey himself is some sort of vegan. All vegans are to one degree of another, misled. Either by ethics or nutrition, they do not fully grasp human qua animal.

We had 2 “talking-heads” (tv news folk) who were both loved by our city as they were both on different channels but represented the same local city news. Within about a year one began looking thinner and thinner. Nobody said nothing. This was back when the internet 1st began. In about a year he began looking sickly and “unexpectedly DIED”, as they said. He was 43. Plus he was a closet gay so many thought he caught that package that keeps on giving..was the rumor..esp. when no one in the city, whether family or news organization gave ANY info into his death, just THAT he died of “undisclosed” causes but everyone in the city -that is, in the streets, knew how and why he died-he was a closet gay and slept around BIG TIME- if u like gays or not, sleeping around period is DANGEROUS is the point. The other news guy died in a similar fashion. Now recently Ive seen blogs (few, but theyre there) on Napolitano dying mysteriously. I don’t think this subject is at all amusing if false but I really hope he’s on a “no wheat diet” and not like those news guys as they had the same excuse(s), “they’re on a special diet, or have ‘gland’ issues’ which the medical documents later rejected as false. Im just saying, I really like the Judge and I hate liars!

Primary Sidebar

I'm Richard Nikoley, and this is my blog. Free the Animal began by a different name in 2003, and as of 2016, contains over 4,000 posts and 100,000 comments from readers. I cover a lot of ground, blogging what I wish, from health, diet, and lifestyle to philosophy, politics, and social issues. I celebrate the audacity and hubris to live by your own exclusive authority and take your own chances in life.

Free the Animal really means to free yourself to reach your best potential in all areas of your life, learn from mistakes and successes, and move on. [Read more...]

Please consider supporting this Blog by CLICKING HERE whenever you shop Amazon. Costs you nothing but sure does help out.

Elixa Probiotic is a British biotech manufacturer in Oxford, UK. U.S. Demand is now so high they've established distribution centers in Illinois, Nevada, and New Jersey.

Still, sell-outs happen regularly, so order now to avoid a waiting list.